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Forwarded message from gender forum <[log in to unmask]> Call for Papers: gender forum - "Literature and Medicine: Women in the Medical Profession" (guest editor Prof. Dr. Carmen Birkle, Uni Marburg) This special issue of gender forum focuses on the intersections between medicine, literature, and gender, also taking into account the relevance of ethnicity and class. The interest in the interface of literature and medicine from the specific point of view of gender is triggered by the intriguing similarities between the medical and literary disciplines. The doctor, like the literary scholar, is faced with a text, a narrative voiced by the patient either through language or bodily symptoms. In order to understand this narrative, the doctor, like the scholar, needs to listen closely, to examine the constituents of the narrative carefully, to consider the subjectivity of the narrative, to read between the lines, and to interpret ambiguities coded in metaphorical language. The relationship between reader and text – on both levels – is embedded in the gender matrix of a given context. Furthermore, Sontag’s analysis of the ways in which illnesses are used as metaphors to express social, political, moral, or cultural crises offers fruitful ground for discussion. We invite papers that discuss both the situation and positions of women in the medical world – for example, as patients, doctors, nurses – and the representation of these situations in literature. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, discussions of - patient narratives - women doctors - doctor-patient relationships - nursing the nation - engendering the hospital - women and madness - illness as a metaphor - the female body as subject to discourses of health, in regard to pregnancy and birth (cosmetic) surgery breast cancer food and eating habits affecting women (e.g. bulimia, anorexia, weight reduction) Contributions by medical practitioners, scholars of medical history as well as by scholars of literature, culture, media, history, and related disciplines are invited. Please send a 200-word proposal as well as a 200-word CV by March 1, 2009 to [log in to unmask] The final paper in MLA format is due on April 30, 2009. The issue is scheduled to appear in the summer of 2009. Articles should conform to the “gender forum” style sheet (available for download at http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de/stylesheet.pdf) and should not exceed 8,000 words in length. Please include a bio-blurb of 5 to 10 lines and an abstract of 10 to 15 lines. Use endnotes and fully documented references at the end of the article. For further information on the journal, please visit our homepage at http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de or contact us via email at [log in to unmask] -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - gender forum Prof. Dr. Beate Neumeier (Editor) Universität zu Köln Englisches Seminar Albertus-Magnus-Platz D-50923 Köln Tel. ++49-(0)221-470-3030 Fax ++49-(0)221-470-6931 E-Mail: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Internet: http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de -- Laming Junior Fellow The Queen's College Oxford OX1 4AW